ORLANDO, Fla. – If Orlando City have one fervent wish this week, it is for the safe return of the midfield linchpin who was recently voted the club's Player of the Year by the team. And it's not Kaká.
No, that player is Darwin Ceren. And the whole club is hoping he returns from two games with El Salvador – including against Guatemala in Los Angeles on Tuesday – in good shape for the big showdown with New York City FC on Friday (7 pm ET, UniMás).
The last time the 25-year-old Ceren turned out for his country, he picked up a knee injury that kept him out of two crucial games in September, hence the understandable amount of nervousness in Central Florida until Ceren’s safe return to the heart of the Lions' midfield.
It was a fact acknowledged after the club’s recent awards dinner by head coach Adrian Heath, who hinted Ceren could take even over the attacking role from the suspended Kaká against MLS's other expansion team on Friday.
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“I was so pleased that his fellow players recognized him as their Player of the Year,” Heath insisted. “Darwin brings everything that you need in a modern day midfielder, energy, anger, vision.
“He has been absolutely fantastic because he gives us everything he’s got every time he pulls an Orlando shirt on and I love him to bits. He’ll certainly be in consideration for the No. 10 role against New York and hopefully he comes back in better condition than he did last time.”
Ceren’s in-house acknowledgement as the team’s MVP may surprise people outside the club, but there is no doubt he has firmly cemented his position after 24 games. He has two goals and two assists, and is usually the defensive midfield partner of the livewire Cristian Higuita.
His ability to play almost any role in the middle of the field has been invaluable at times this year, and he has grown immensely from the club’s original February 2014 USL signing, a promising recruit from Juventud Independiente who took some time to settle in.
He was Orlando’s third signing for their MLS ranks – after Kevin Molino and Yordany Alvarez – and, after failing to crack the starting lineup for Orlando’s season-opener against New York City, he became a fixture in the line-up, missing seven starts only through international call-ups or injury.
Ceren might not have appeared in purple at all, though, if a deal had been worked out with up-and-coming Turkish club Balikesirspor a few months before Orlando came calling. He went on trial to the newly-promoted outfit in summer 2013 but couldn’t come to terms with them and returned to El Salvador.
Ironically, Ceren was not the original target when Heath set off to El Salvador on a scouting mission in 2013. He was there to check on an Independiente striker, but it was the midfielder who really caught his eye.
“It was a game that went to extra time, and Darwin was still bombing up and down at the end of 120 minutes,” Heath explained. “He really stood out and I immediately thought, ‘That will do for us.’ It just shows the benefit of doing your own scouting.
“We then saw him again in a few World Cup warm-up games for El Salvador in the US and it confirmed what I’d seen. D.C. United were also interested in him but we managed to force the issue and it was one of the best day’s business this club has done. Fantastic, in fact.”
